


What You Needed to Hear

by colorofmercury



Series: Shifting Gears [13]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Depression, Other, Self-Mutilation, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-09
Updated: 2012-03-09
Packaged: 2017-11-01 16:47:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorofmercury/pseuds/colorofmercury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Response to an ask on tumblr that read: "To anyone, have you ever contemplated suicide?" </p><p>The answer, for Karkat, was yes, but he wouldn't have said so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What You Needed to Hear

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place about two years before Shifting Gears. Also "How Karkat and Gamzee became moirails," secondarily. 
> 
> Also, please, if there's anything I've done tastelessly or offensively, let me know. I'm not certain I handled this well, and I want to be able to fix it if I didn't.

You’re not sure you can do this anymore. 

This is something you think pretty often, but somehow something always happens to make you change your mind. 

You try to think of those things, now. Because you met someone, recently, and you wouldn’t call him a friend and he wouldn’t either, but you can’t help but feel like he wouldn’t want you to go through with this. 

When you were sixteen the pills in your hand were rattling together with how hard your hands were shaking, but this was the best thing to do. You were scared, but this would be easier for you and everyone around you. You try, now, at twenty-three, not to dwell on those feelings but to remember how that irritatingly loud meow broke you out of your thoughts. You’d yelled at her, told her to leave you alone, pushed her away when she got close—because maybe if the stupid cat hated you she wouldn’t find it as hard to go live with someone else. 

But she just stayed here, the stubborn thing, rubbing up against your leg and jumping up in your lap, and the fur on her back was stained pink for a week because of how hard you were crying.

You try so hard to focus on her, but all you can remember is how you felt before. 

Besides, you don’t have a pet to annoy you out of it this time. She died a year ago and you couldn’t bear to go through the heartbreak again.  
You don’t have your lusus anymore, either, to clack at you pleadingly until you give in and let him give you some approximation of a hug for what must have been an hour. 

Because he left. 

There is no one even remotely cordial enough with you to consider you a friend. Your kind hate you for “pretending you’re something you’re not,” and everyone else still sees you as one of them. There is no group to which you naturally belong, no one that doesn’t see you as a freak, a disgrace, an annoyance. 

The gun on your desk gleams at you as you watch it. You picked it up earlier, just to see, and it felt so much heavier now than it had when you got it. It was heavy like that feeling in your stomach when you think you’re worthless. 

At least, that might have been the way you would have said it two weeks ago. Two weeks ago when you were okay, and life sucked but at least you could tell yourself that when you feel like this it’s just a phase. 

It will go away. 

You’ll be okay. 

You close your eyes, just to look away from the gun, and try to think those words as sincerely as you can. It doesn’t really work. You try to picture them clear and soothing, encouraging, soft yellow like the color of hope. You try to hear a voice to say the words, one that isn’t your own—but no voice comes to mind. None that are convincing enough. There’s no one who would say those words and mean it the way you desperately need them to. 

Because no one gives enough of a shit about your useless ass to bother. 

And why should they? 

You fuck up everything you touch, you can’t speak without making someone think you’re angry, you can’t even be happy enough with yourself to keep from mutilating the parts of you they say you should be the most proud of. 

You thought you would be happier if you tried to look like someone else. Someone kinder. Someone softer. Someone less disdainful, less violent, less sickeningly awful. 

But it didn’t work, did it? 

No. 

No, you fucking worthless piece of half-digested shit, it didn’t. 

Just fucking die. 

No one cares. Maybe they won’t be happy when you die, because that’s technically socially unacceptable, but they sure as hell won’t be torn up over it. It’ll be a mess for someone to clean up, but being a dead body isn’t the worst thing you could do. You’ve done more inconvenient things in the past. 

Pull the trigger, and no one will have to deal with you again past scrubbing the walls. 

You won’t even have to deal with that much. 

You just have to deal with the weight of the thing in your hands and the pressure against the trigger as you pull it. 

The gun is still sitting on your desk. 

You stare at it, even as it turns blurry and red with the rest of the room, and you try to think through the process again as if it’ll make it easier. 

Your computer pings. 

The noise doesn’t startle you like you think it should. You don’t jump, you don’t yell, you just look at the screen with a kind of detachment that might have scared you if you had a reason to care enough. For a moment you consider just leaving it, but… if someone sent you a message you should at least let them know why you won’t be answering after today. 

You don’t think it through any farther than that before raising your hands to the keyboard. 

Please dont’ message md anymroe becuase I on’t resosnd,

Your hands must be shaking harder than you thought. Whatever. The message is clear enough. He writes again, and you notice earlier all he said was a simple greeting. 

You almost feel guilty. 

WoAh, YoU OkAy tHeRe bRoThEr? YoU AiN’T TyPiN So gOoD

You don’t know why he calls you brother. You just met him, it’s not like you’ve had time to establish that kind of bond. 

i”ll be okay oson just styop mesasging me please.

Oh, YoU BuSy? I GeT It, I’Ll lEaVe a mOtHeRfUcKeR AlOnE

I’m nfot busy i”m goingg away. Srorry for ttye typos. 

I DoN’T WaNt tO OvErStEp nO BoUnDaRiEs, BuT YoU’Re mAkIn mE A LiTtLe nErVoUs hErE

Sroyr. I Jsut wanted to elt you know I wont’ be responedign anymore. That’sl all. 

WhY’S ThAt?

You’re not sure you want to tell him. You hesitate at the keyboard, glance over at the gun again, and decide to tell him the truth. 

I”m dgny

HaHaHa wOaH, tRy tHaT AgAiN

You type every letter as carefully as you can. 

I’m dying. 

He doesn’t respond for a while. A distant part of you is a little… disappointed. Still. He got the message. That’s all that matters. 

You turn away from your computer. 

KaRkAt, CaN I AsK YoU SoMeThIn?

You’re a little more startled this time than you were the first. You turn back.

Whyt he fcuk not.

YoU GoT A MoIrAiL?

No. WHy.

CuZ I DiDn’t wAnT To bE StEpPiN On nO ToEs oR NoThIn wHeN I SaId tHiS. yOu nEeD SoMeOnE To tAlK To? DoEsN’T NeEd tO Be aNy kInD Of cOmMiTmEnT, oR NoThIn.

WHywt ould I need somethiogn to toalk to.

I FiGuRe iF A BrOtHeR’S DyInG, hE MiGhT WaNt a bIt oF CoMpAnY BeFoRe hE Up aNd hEaDs oFf tO ThE AfTeRlIfE.

gAmzee I am fukcing killing msyelf I don’t wannt to toak to tanyone. 

There’s another pause there and without knowing why you start sobbing. 

Eternity goes by and he still doesn’t respond. 

You give up. 

You give up everything, because there’s nothing left to try to hold onto anymore. 

The phone rings. 

You pick it up without thinking. 

You can’t even speak. 

“Hey,” he says, more softly than you’ve ever heard him speak. “Karkat, it’s me.” You knew it was him before you picked up the phone. You’re not sure how. Right now you’re more focused on trying not to cry audibly. “… Karkat? Hey, my brother, I’m up and tryin’ to talk to you, but I need to know if you’ve got those hear-ducts open for me.” 

You try to say you’re listening. You make a sort of choking noise instead. For some reason he takes that to mean the same thing. 

“There you are, best friend. I knew you were with me. I’m headin’ over now, okay, I got stuff I want to talk to you about what’s best said in person. You just sit tight, motherfucker, don’t you go leavin’ me before I get to talk to you.” 

You can’t hold back the noises, now, the stupid strangled wailing noises that sound like dispair. Before you can stop yourself you’re nodding, and after a moment you manage to force out, “Okay.” 

He sighs through the phone. It sounds like relief. And maybe, if you imagine hard enough, it sounds like hope. 

“That’s what I wanted to hear.” 

He’s silent for a while, but you keep the phone against your ear, like maybe just having someone there to hear you cry will help. 

“Hey, Karkat,” he says after a long moment. “You’ll be okay.”


End file.
